Burlington, Ia. — In two campaign stops in eastern Iowa today, presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has called for a “liability shield” for doctors to boost access to health care.

The “shield” would protect health care providers from lawsuits in connection with free health care offered to those who couldn’t otherwise afford it.

Bachmann, a Minnesota congresswoman told a group of employees in Muscatine that doctors, nurses, drugmakers and others who once provided charity care are scared off today by the legal risks associated with it. The “liability shield” would allay those fears.

“Why not do that? Why not take care of poor people?” Bachmann said. “Why not make your lives cheaper and better so you don’t have to worry about health care?”

But in Iowa, something very similar to such a shield is already in place.

The Volunteer Health Care Provider Program in the state’s Department of Public Health is designed specifically to increase volunteerism by health professionals by providing legal protections against malpractice and other claims.

Doctors who enter into a “protection agreement” under the program receive legal defense and indemnification for care provided to uninsured and underinsured patients.

The legal defense is provided by the Iowa Department of Justice, and the indemnification covers “the full extent of any judgment brought against the individual.”

In exchange for the benefits, the health-care providers must offer free services.

Bachmann’s proposal as outlined Friday was light on details, but ostensibly would be a federal program (she is, after all, running for president). That may conflict with her typical health-care rhetoric, which is sharply critical of federal involvement in medicine, and calls instead for more local-level oversight.